


My Barbaric Darling

by baehj2915



Series: Barbaric Erik [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Caveman Territorialism, Crack, Erik Being Cocky, Erik versus Bears, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Humor, M/M, Mild Gore-bear related, Rule of Funny, Sexual Content, Sexual Humour, Worst. Concubine. Ever.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:45:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik is revivified caveman. Charles is the anthropologist(?) taking care of him. This is as ridiculous as it sounds. Romcom misunderstandings and prehistoric wooing ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Erik

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this hilarious prompt from the kink meme](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/7634.html?thread=12747986#t12747986).

Erik's POV

I awoke, body creaking in pain. I was so cold. It felt like my bones had been replaced with ice. I wondered if it were possible I fell unconscious on the plain or near the river. That was only way I could fathom being so cold. And if so, how did I survive? 

Yet there was some sort of soft, warm skin blanketing me. Something like I’d never felt before. Clearing away a heavy, blurriness from my eyes, I tried to pull at the skin, soft on both sides, but no kind of fur I could recognize. I tried to pull at it, but my arms were weak and restrained by strange vines. They were clear and solid like ice, but warm and moving like snakes. I called out for help, someone to release me from this strange, inexplicable magic. 

I was surprised when two foreigners came to my side, trying to push me back to the soft bed I was on. It must have been the softest straw in the land because I could barely feel it. The strangers looked unlike anyone I had ever seen in my clan, or anyone else’s. One of them was obviously an old man, but his face was hairless like a woman’s. And it looked like he was wearing flat wheels of ice over his eyes. Their clothes were strange and thin, white and blue and a single stripe of red like blood down the middle of the old one’s front. 

Such mysteries fell away from my thoughts because the elder’s companion took me aback and pained my already struggling chest.

He looked something like a male youth before manhood, but was unspeakably beautiful. The sun, coming from somewhere I couldn’t tell, lit up the youth’s face until his eyes shone like the sky after first light. His lips were little and plump and red like fruit-flesh. His skin was clean and smooth and unmarked. His hair was shorn, but so was the other one’s, so I assumed it was a mark of their clan, but it was so clean and brushed, shining in the light despite how dark it was. He was royalty of some kind, undoubtedly.

Several options came to my mind. If I could communicate with the youth, I could parley with his chief and make negotiations to be taken back to my clan. Or I could hold the youth hostage and make demands, but that would only work if the youth were someone’s son. From the look of him though, so kempt and pretty, he was undoubtedly someone’s concubine. Possibly the old man’s. 

The foreigners were making sounds that sounded like speech but no tongue I could identify. 

I demanded they speak in my tongue, but they looked at me dumbly. The youth came forward with his foreign sounds soft and smooth, brazenly touching my shoulder and my neck like he belonged to me. Even in front of the old man. 

Forgoing the fatigue in my body, and the strangeness of my surroundings, putting all the unknown to the back of my thoughts, I leapt off the soft bed I’d been trapped in. There was a sharp sting in my arms as the strange vines bit me, trying to hold me back, but I pulled them off. The foreigners were panicking now, getting louder, but backing away. I was pleased to know that even weakened these foreigners found me intimidating. The old man backed away from his youth, which was just as well, because I intended to take the youth anyway for my claim, to barter or keep should the bartering fail. 

I grabbed the youth by the neck and pulled him to my chest. He fit snugly under my arm. He didn’t resist, but just made his quiet sounds and lightly pushed on my chest and shuddered under my touch. I smelled in the boy’s deep, sweet scent and felt around his body. Firmer in the shoulders and chest than in the belly. I grabbed the boy’s rear with both hands, still unable to take my nose out of the youth’s sweet-smelling hair. He was firm and pliant and jumped at the sensation, but did not scream or beat his molester. 

Definitely a concubine. 

The youth finally pulled away when I began to take his strange wraps off to inspect his genitals. The youth said foreign words in a more frantic tone, but still holding his hands up in submission. He was still close enough that wrestling him down would have been easy if needed, but when I looked for the easiest mode of escape, I took in my location properly for the first time. 

I was in a house of finer making than I’d ever seen. The walls were clean and straight and painted a bright white like I’d never seen. Someone had harnessed fire into sheets planted on the roof, yet there was neither smoke nor a hole for the smoke to get out through. Just when I thought the insanity had reached its peak, I turned around to see an entirely clear wall. It reflected my pale image like water, but stood strong like stone. For a moment I thought nothing was there, but I touched it and it was firm. It was the same kind of ice that was over the old man’s eyes. But I could see through it clear as thought it weren’t even there. 

On the other side of the wall were huge houses made of stone, as far as I could see. I had to be in some kind of realm of witches or gods, for no animal had the strength to set up stones of the size of these houses. Or perhaps giants, though I could find none as I looked through the wall.

The youth’s hand startled me away from the see-through wall. It was a relief if only to see something I could understand in this foreign place. 

He gave me more soothing sounds. He kept pointing to his chest and repeating the same sound. I assumed it was his barbaric way of introducing himself. 

“Tshaaarls,” he said, touching his breast. “Tshaaarls.” 

I placed my hand over the spot he’d touched. “Tshaaarls.”

He said it again, this time slightly differently, “Tsharills.”

“Tsharills.”

Tsharills’ lips spread into a dizzying smile. I wanted his mouth on mine and only for me. It was unexpected luck to find a concubine so fair. The idea of bartering him away was less and less appealing. He took his hand from his chest and put over mine, the space where the heart beats loudest. He touched his chest again with his other hand, saying “Tsharills” again, and patting my chest with gentle fingers, looking at me with keen eyes. 

I looked around, but the old man was near the far wall, watching expectantly and fearfully. I had a hatred for him, because I suddenly understood what was happening. 

During my hunt, I’d wandered into some foreign land. These people were obviously afraid of me. As well they should have been. I was the best hunter in my clan since well before my father’s lifetime. Perhaps they’d heard rumors of my reputation and my fearsomeness. Perhaps they feared I was scouting for an invasion. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were giving me Tsharills to appease me. 

That much was clear with Tsharills’ hand language. We couldn’t communicate through words so he was trying to let me know he was giving his heart to mine. 

I felt conflicted. I had planned on taking him anyway, but capturing one’s prey was honorable. Simply being given a concubine when I was just a hunter, not a chief or a priest, seemed liked cheating. But the elder was cowering in the corner, just waiting for his offering to be taken. And Tsharills was such a handsome gift. I doubted that if I lived to kill every deer that existed I’d be given another gift so beautiful. 

So I accepted. I covered his hand on my chest with mine and told him I would take him. 

“Ayer-ich?” He said, trying to invoke some of my tongue. 

I didn’t think trying to sort out the differences were important at that moment. After all, I’d heard nothing I could discern in his words and he seemed deaf to mine. But since it was an important phrase, I decided to repeat myself. 

I nodded. “Yes, you are mine.” 

He smiled again and it was truly dazzling, like the moon shining off the water. He spewed off a rapid flurry of his words and patted my chest in delight. 

“Ayer-ik! Wee kahn kahl euoo ayer-ik!” 

Whatever Tsharills had attempted to say was badly butchered, but I supposed I needed to commend him for the effort. So I nodded and patted his head, like a child attempting his craft for the first time. He babbled something at the elder, who looked relieved I had accepted the gift. I barked at him and decided to take my Tsharills and leave. 

No sooner did I throw my prize over my shoulder in order to depart than the foreigners started wailing. Tsharills was making harsh noises for the first time but holding onto my chest tightly. His sounds were similar to the tone my mother used to scold me in when I misbehaved.

I sighed. If they were going to be so picky about their customs they needed to find someone who spoke my tongue. Even though I knew I wouldn’t be understood, I complained loudly about not being able to do what I wanted with my property and put Tsharills back on his feet. 

The old man suddenly came back to show his stones, stabbing me with something sharp. Unluckily for him, the pain was very slight and the wise woman had protected me against evil magic before my hunt. I pulled his magic ice stick out of my arm, about to thrash him for his attack.

But I fell to the ground instead. 

My senses started to fail me. My only comfort was that as everything faded to blackness, Tsharills held me in his arms and cooed soft sounds at me again.


	2. Charles

_Charles POV_

 

After Erik recovered from the sedative, he was a little more circumspect around me, but seemed to be adjusting to the mansion well. 

I was angry with Dr. Speigelberg for sedating Erik without warning like that, but to be perfectly honest, the down time while he was sedated had been much needed. I’d needed to call Hank to help with the transport and to call Raven and warn her. My heart was still racing from the first call from Dr. Speigelberg. This whole situation needed to be done delicately, respectfully, and carefully. Erik could serve as evidence of something powerful and important. It was more or less academic consensus that there was interbreeding between Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, but here, alive, in the flesh was a man who’d lived towards the decline of the Neanderthal era and was genetically representative of both species. The plant matter frozen with him had been dated towards the end of the period that the two species were known to exist. He was obviously a Homo sapien, but physical markers showed more than a little Neanderthal. Dr. Speigelberg was still working on analyzing the blood work. 

The potential for knowledge was staggering. 

Not only could we study his genetic material but also the potential to communicate in a common tongue existed. And then what could he tell me? 

I shuddered. 

I’d never been so involved in so vast a scientific discovery before. And to be perfectly honest, it was making me uncomfortably excited. I’d always been passionate about my studies, but I’d never once felt the urge to wank just because I’d spent a long day in the lab. I suddenly wondered if the Marie couldn’t keep her hands off Pierre when she discovered radium. 

Inappropriate randiness aside, I was in spectacular danger of geeking out on an atomic level. I’d started scratching out notes in a little moleskin, but every two minutes I couldn’t help but look up and get a little lost in Erik. I had to literally bite my lip to keep myself from screaming and jumping up and down in glee: “THERE IS A FUCKING CAVEMAN IN MY HOUSE!” 

He looked just as primitive as I’d expected him to look. He was still dirty having only gone through a preliminary sponge bath as part of his care, wearing only a loincloth. His beard completely obscured his face and his hair was long and matted, about halfway down his back. When he was at rest, he generally didn’t stand, but crouched the way many denizens of remote quarters of Asia and Africa still do. He moved swiftly and seemed very keen on inspecting things in a very tactile way. His attention was torn in half between the building and the people in it. 

That was Raven, Hank, and I. After waking from unconsciousness again, I was afraid he was going to get aggressive. I advised cautiousness and after letting him touch and smell me again, he seemed fairly content. I couldn’t say why, but he developed an immediate bond with me. He seemed even reluctant to leave my side for long. 

Thankfully, introducing him to Raven and Hank had gone off without any of the complications we’d had at Dr. Speigelberg’s office. Also thankfully, Erik didn’t get as handsy as he’d gotten before, leaving Hank and Raven’s private bits private. He’d grabbed the tips of Raven’s long hair and smelt them before passing over her with some sense of approval. He had approached Hank more carefully, turning over his hands and making a show of what seemed to be masculine overtures. I’d known Hank to be meek, but he was taller than Erik, gangly and verging on large. Erik barked at him and pushed him a little, but when Hank didn’t react Erik backed off. 

My next goal was to get Erik cleaned more thoroughly, but I didn’t want to do anything too fast and scare him. So I thought it would be a good idea to let him explore a little.

We were all gathered in the east library. It was the biggest room in the mansion, complete with a second level, but it also, aside from the books, had the least amount of stuff in it. There were three couches and several chairs and a fireplace. I hadn’t wanted to take him somewhere with too much light or glass. He’d appeared distressed by the windows earlier. 

However there were tall wide-leafed potted plants in the corners. Since Erik was apparently finished with inspecting the soot in the fireplace and smelling the books, he was currently hiding behind one of them, observing us as much as we were observing him. 

“Why is he doing that?” Raven said, not without disdain. 

She was a little concerned about my plans and didn’t want Erik staying here with me. When I told her over the phone, she yelled, “There is no way I’m sleeping in the same building as a fucking caveman, Charles” so loud, Hank heard from the driver’s seat. Of course, he promptly offered his apartment, promising to sleep on the couch and buy her dinner. 

“I could not say,” I said, trying to write fast enough to catch up with my brain. 

“Can I just stress how much of a bad idea I think this is again?” 

“Of course,” I said. 

“Will you listen this time?”

“I always listen, darling.” 

I didn’t bother looking, but I could feel her glaring daggers at the back of my head. 

“Hank, please tell my brother that keeping Encino Man in the mansion is a terrible idea that will result in his death.” 

“I don’t understand that reference,” Hank said. “I’m sure Charles is more than capable of keeping the subject from dying.” 

She sighed her favorite “ugh, scientists” sigh. “I meant Charles, Hank. I meant that Charles is going to die.” 

I did finally look up from my notebook to see Hank’s reaction. He seemed to be considering it for a second. “It seems unlikely. Out of all of us, the subject has shown the most favor to Charles. Also, Dr. Speigelberg gave him a set of sedatives for the subject in case of emergency.” 

“Erik,” I corrected. 

Hank and Raven frowned in confusion.

“We’re calling him Erik.”

“Why?” Hank said, as though calling him The Subject or Observational Study #314 were perfectly suitable titles. 

Raven shook her head at me. “His name is obviously not Erik.”

“We introduced ourselves. We communicated. I said my name. I got him to repeat it; he responds to it. And when I pointed to him, he understood. That’s just the sound he made, so it’s sort of like he named himself. Yes, I know that can’t be his real name, but it’s about as close as we can get until we can speak the same language. I’m not going to call him ‘the subject’ until we do.” 

They looked at each other dubiously. 

“Are you sure about that?” Hank asked tentatively. 

“Yes! We connected!” I said a little too loudly, sure that we had. 

Erik rustled from behind his plant and scaled the bookshelves a few feet up. After traversing a shelf or so to the right he jumped off to hide behind a couch and spy on us from there. 

Raven shook her head. “He’s going to kill you in your sleep.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s just trying to understand everything. He’s very sweet.”

Hank looked scandalized. “Dr. Speigelberg said he attacked you.” 

I rolled my eyes. “He was exaggerating. Erik just gets a little too close. He picked me up. That’s all. And he put me back down because he knew I was upset.” 

“I meant when he groped you and tried to take your clothes off.” 

Raven gave me a look that was supposed to remind me how right she was and that Erik was dangerous, but I knew he wasn’t. So far he’d been perfectly amenable to reasoning and attempts at communications. Frankly, he’d been startlingly good at adjusting to the surroundings. 

“He may have thought I was a woman,” I wondered. 

Raven held her face and yelled into her palms, “That does not make it better!” 

Hank shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Sure, without reference he could possibly think that. You are relatively short and slightly androgynous.” 

“Hey,” I scolded. 

Hank shrugged. “In context, at least. You rate moderately masculine with androgynous leanings on the Bem scale and physically—“ He stopped and cleared his throat when I glared. “Also, you’re beardless, but then again so is everyone else he’s seen so far. But he didn’t react that way at all when he saw Raven, who is very obviously female.” 

“Yes, so that’s when concluded who was male and female and didn’t need to check.”

“Perhaps your perceived gender doesn’t even matter considering you’re talking about a man whose culture is completely foreign and unknown to yours and therefore couldn’t possibly begin to suspect his sexual leanings or perceptions of sexual mores and likelihood of his clubbing you over the head and bringing you back to his cave to make you his non-consensual caveman wife, penis or not! Perhaps you should just be wary of the possibility in the first goddamn place instead of letting your nerdy boner for your twenty thousand year old science experiment blind you to the dangers of letting an unsocialized caveman live in our home!” 

Hank stared at Raven like she was some sort of goddess, which wasn’t uncommon. That look just tended to fluctuate between Raven’s insightful gender rants and whenever she wore a bikini. 

I glared at her. While she did have a point, that we could only speculate about the social role of sexuality in Erik’s culture until we could ask him, I could take care of myself, particularly with the sedatives. I also wanted her to realize that Erik wasn’t an animal, just an early human in a new, frightening place. He wasn’t feral. But as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, there was a light creak, a muffled thud and the sound of feet hitting hardwood floor. The sound of Erik leaping over the couch. 

He stood to his full, not unimpressive height and pointed at Raven, before slapping the coffee table between us. He said something in his language that sounded like an order. Then he crossed his arms and adopted a look that I could only call smug. 

I quickly wrote down his reactions. 

“See?” I said eagerly. “He’s a rational, intelligent being. He yelled at us to stop our arguing. He didn’t attack us. He spoke to us. That’s brilliant!”

“Sure, that’s one interpretation.” 

Erik seemed emboldened and spoke some more. I wanted to prove to Raven and Hank how amazing Erik was. 

I stood up and pointed at him. “Erik. Erik.” 

He tilted his head and pointed to himself, but didn’t say anything.

I nodded and pointed again. “Yes, Erik. It’s Charles, remember?” I held my palm open waved it open and closed, hoping he’d get the idea to come to me. 

He pointed to me. “Sharliss.”

I nodded and pointed at him. “Erik.” 

He grinned sharply under the beard and came forward to grab my hand altogether, which I didn’t expect. “Sharliss.” He brought his free hand to his own chest and said, “Ariik.” 

I nodded vehemently, feeling light-headed. I was so proud and ready to explode from the luck I was having. A man who had lived twenty thousand years ago was not only standing next to me, but he was talking to me as well. He knew my fucking name! Well, pretty close to my name. 

“Look!” I said, holding up his hand for Raven and Hank. “I told you we had a connection. He could probably sense you were frightened of him. You just need to give him some time to get used to you. He’s woken up many millennia after the time he lived in and has no idea what’s going on. Today’s probably been so overwhelming to him. But we still made a breakthrough. He knows my name and can respond to one of his own.”

“You’re not all worried that he could break you in half?” Raven said. 

“This is bloody incredible!” Again, I showed her my hand in his, which couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a universal symbol for trust. 

 

We showed Erik most of the rest of the mansion. I could see him taking stock of all the rooms and inspecting the items he could. It was fascinating. Hank and I took as many notes as we could. Before long it was getting late and Erik’s interest was starting to flag. He was still dirty and probably tired. 

I assumed it would probably be better to go through all the cleaning rituals alone, seeing as he still hadn’t warmed to Hank and Raven. 

Before they left, Hank reminded me to record my observations later and Raven gave me her Taser. I didn’t plan on using it, but, well, anything could happen. 

Thinking of the ridiculous pantomimes I’d have to do if I wanted to explain that I needed him to take a bath, I simply held out my hand and hoped he showed the same amount of trust he’d shown before. Luckily he did. I took him upstairs to show him the wonders of indoor plumbing. 

I decided the easiest place to start would be his hair. So after a brief five minute interlude in which I recorded his reactions to the mirror (in a word: enthralled) and finally got him to sit, not stand, on a chair, _and_ proved to him by cutting off a chunk of my own hair that the scissors weren’t a weapon, I put on gloves and set about cutting his hair. It was so matted and gnarled it came off in flat chunks. I tried to be as gentle as I could, but being so tangled it must have pulled awfully. Through one particularly bad knot of hair he jerked suddenly and my shears nicked his ear. He grabbed roughly and put me over his knee and smacked my bottom before I could even register what happened. 

When he let me go he said something that I obviously didn’t understand, but came with a warning of Erik slapping his own thigh and pointing at me. 

Without a clue of how to deal with that, I wrote it down in my notebook and returned to cutting his hair.

Once I’d cut his hair and beard as short as I could with the scissors, I bagged up the hair for processing in forensics, thinking dreamily of what kind of pollutants they’d find evident from his time. Then I took a good look at him. And took a few more good looks. 

In the margins of my notes I wrote: Relevance? Startlingly handsome according to present day aesthetics. Fuck.

I hadn’t been planning on giving him a close shave, but upon seeing what he looked like under that mess of a beard, I really wanted to see more. I lathered on the shaving cream, which I think he rather enjoyed and shaved his face as gently as I could. 

When I was done I went back to my notebook to underline fuck. 

However, Erik wasn’t so pleased when I showed him his reflection. Which confirmed that he understood the concept, but not that he liked it. He pointed at me angrily in the mirror until he hurt his finger. Attempting to illustrate, I don’t know, custom perhaps, I rubbed my cheek with the back of my hand and then did that to him. He stopped spitting out harsh words and his eyes began to soften a little. 

“Smooth,” I said, getting a little tired of the quiet. “It’s how we wear our faces.” 

He rubbed the back of his hand on my cheek. “Zmoof.”

I nodded. 

He seemed to be content with that. 

Compared to the haircut, getting him into the bath was a walk in the park. Partly because he was fascinated by the water coming out of the faucet, which was to be expected, and partly, I’d wager, because he was eager to get clean. I did have to take off my shoes and pull up my trousers to show him how to get in though. The water was steaming hot and I think he might’ve been afraid. But once he stood in it and I cut away his filthy loincloth he was eager to get in the water. 

In fact he was eager to have me get in the water with him. 

“I’m sorry, I’m wearing clothes!” I said, panicky, leaping out of the tub. 

I’d been hoping to get away with just showing him how to wash, but when I mimed rubbing the soap against my chest he simply picked up the soap and rubbed it against my chest too. So I scrubbed, somewhat with his cooperation. I soaped up his hands and shoulders and back and chest, trying to ignore how firm he felt and his audible moans. I switched to his feet, and then his head, but his enjoyment did not waver. I even broke to brush his teeth and clean under his nails. Then it became apparent that all that was left was his genitals, lurking under the mostly gray, soapy water. 

He looked down at his crotch and then smiled at me. 

“Cheeky bastard,” I said. 

I had to steel my resolve. He needed to practice proper hygiene and no one alive knew when the last time he’d cleaned down there was. “You need to wash your balls,” I added, hoping he’d miraculously pick up the English language. 

He didn’t.

I reached into the sink cupboard and took out a washcloth and lathered it up. 

“I know this seems suggestive,” I said reaching into the murky water as though it were shark-infested. “But I’m only doing this for science. Neither of us should get any enjoyment out of this. I don’t care that your penis is abnormally large and you’re built like a fucking Greek statue. This is about hygiene.” 

It was immediately apparent he was semi-hard. I think I managed to wash him for about ten seconds before one of his hands came in the water to ensnare mine. I quickly pushed myself away and ran out of the bathroom to hide around the other side of the wall.

“Tsharliss!” He yelled. 

“I draw the line at this! I’m not wanking you off. Take care of it yourself!” 

He called after me a few more times, but made no move to get out of the bath. I waited to hear what he’d do. I found out I had proof that early modern man definitely masturbated. When it sounded like he finished, I came back in to write that down. 

“Tsharliss,” he said, looking disappointed in me. Like I’d forgotten to pick up the milk.

I waved a towel in front of me and motioned for him to get out. I most definitely let him towel himself off. I got him dressed into Hank’s old sweat pants and Mathletics t-shirt. Erik looked at his clothed form in disgust and took them back off again. We went through that two more times, before I said sod it and just put my bathrobe on him. 

Which he wore for almost ten minutes. 

 

After a late dinner, which he devoured, I was exhausted. He showed some interest in the kitchen pantry. He’d have never seen prepared food before. Despite the disaster in the bathroom, I was still aching and eager to talk to him. I desperately wanted to know what he thought, what his life had been like. I was also eager to get him to sleep, so I could record my final notes and go to bed. 

I must have been tired if, still having a naked, revivified twenty-thousand year old man in my presence, all I could think of was sleep. 

And suddenly, with the complete dignity and reverence the thought had deserved, I simultaneously realized that I had already normalized this impossible experience and that this was the closest I would ever come to being the Doctor. 

I was both disappointed and incredibly proud. 

After a final check-in call to inform Raven that I wasn’t dead or hurt or in any way compromised, very much bypassing the almost handjob in the bathtub and that he refused to wear clothes, I brought Erik back upstairs again for bed time. A concept he didn’t seem to understand. 

It took approximately far too many minutes of frustrated pointing and miming before I said sod it, again, and just climbed into the bed. 

“See?” I said. I tucked my hands under my head in picture of cherubic mock-sleep, making fake snore sounds. “Sleep.” 

I flipped the covers back and felt the bed sink under his weight. Finding the pillows to his disliking, he pushed them on the floor and finally settled on his back, pulling the blanket up to his armpits. 

I sighed in relief and got up to go to my bed. And so did Erik. 

We did that, like a bad Vaudeville routine, a few more times and I wanted to cry. Erik looked about as frustrated as I felt so it was nice to know the feeling was mutual. With a sigh, I crumbled and took him to my room. If I was going to be forced to share a bed, I was going to do it in mine. 

“Only tonight,” I said, fully aware I was only saying it to myself. 

I pointed to the bed and shut myself in the bathroom to get changed and brush my teeth. He attempted to open the door the entire time I was alone, with a rising level of aggression until I washed my hands and unlocked it. 

He looked at me disappointedly again. He immediately began tugging at the collar of my pajamas. He made an abrupt sound like a scoff. Since I refused to write in my notebook that would one day be the basis for a groundbreaking journal article how Erik insisted I should be naked as well I pushed his hand away from me.

“No. Not now. I’m tired.” 

Not to be deterred, he tried again tugging at the waistband of my flannels. I pushed his hand away, but this time he grabbed my wrist. “Sharliss,” he said and pulled me to his chest. “Ariik,” he added, with great intensity. More for show than with force, he bit my cheek. Then he clasped my head and pulled me into a bruising kiss. It was fierce and possessive, like he was making a statement. I wanted to resist as a matter of principle, but in all honesty, it just felt too good. I more than let him; I participated. I pulled him down to me and let him nip at me. He pulled away breathing heavy. 

I was too close to his jaw line, his sharp green eyes, and the buzz of his now clean auburn hair. He squeezed me tighter to his chest and I was already kicking myself for that kiss. On the scale of terrible mistakes, it was invading Russia in the winter or Afghanistan any time at all. Frantically, I wondered what I could do to get out of this without resorting to a tranquilizer. (Raven’s Taser was out of the question.)

“I’m not normally this vain, but this would be a lot easier if you were ugly,” I muttered, considering for a moment, just letting Erik have his way with me. 

Then from some dark corner of my mind I thought: don’t you play dead to stave off a bear or moose attack or something?

What the hell, right?

I made a great show of going limp and swooning in his arms. For a long moment, he just held me and did nothing. He shook me, trying to revive me, and said my name. He patted my cheek a lot more gently than I thought him capable, repeating my name. When it was clear I wasn’t going to move again, he picked me up in a bridal carry and tucked me into bed. 

I didn’t actually have the nerve to fall asleep until I heard his breathing relax. 

I was beginning to wonder if Raven had been right after all.


	3. Erik

_Erik POV_

 

“Cha. Cha, cha, chaaah.”

Tsharliss was sitting in front of me during our morning meal, making that sound over and over again. His teeth were showing and his hair was tangled like a thicket of weeds. He looked silly. He was trying to provoke me into attempting his tongue. I didn’t approve of his setting these tasks to me, but I liked watching his mouth move. 

“Cha,” I said. 

“Chaarrrr.”

“Chaarrrr,” I repeated, feeling like an infant.

“Chaarr,” he said again.

I looked at him so he would know my displeasure. He was punishing me; I could tell. Already since waking, he’d rebuffed me again. The bed had been a cocoon of warmth, with Tsharliss asleep, huddled close to me. He’d looked so soft and perfect in his sleep that I couldn’t help but touch him. And touching him proved so pleasant it caused my cock to crow. 

Apparently he did not like being woken up that way. 

When he returned from his flight, he made a quick halting gesture in front of my waist. He held his fist up, mimicking a tumid member, and shook his head. Then he brandished of his magic sticks in my sight, one of those that made me fall into a deep sleep and mistook for death the day before. 

I didn’t understand what gamut of behavior I had to conquer before I could lay with him. 

He was proving to be a terrible concubine. 

“Chaa-rrulls,” he said. He pointed at himself again for emphasis. “Chaarrulls.” 

I couldn’t tell much of a difference between Tsharliss and Chaarrulls, but if his language had a different meaning, I supposed I would adopt. And since his morning threat, I was trying to oblige him.

“Charrulls,” I said, which made him smile again. And because it bore repeating, I added slowly so he would understand, holding my palm over my chest like he had, “Mine. Charrulls, mine.” 

“Yus,” he said brightly. “Ayer-ik.” 

Though I was beginning to think he didn’t understand what I meant. 

In fact, I was beginning to think he wasn’t even a concubine. No concubine I ever heard of was afraid of a man’s spear or wilted from a thorough kiss. That or he was a defective one the old man had cheated me with. But that didn’t make sense and there was much in this strange land that didn’t make sense. 

First I had thought the old man was Charrulls’ chief, but after meeting more of Charrulls’ clan, I was beginning to suspect that the unpleasant woman from the day before was Charrulls’ clan matriarch. She was young, but commanding and strong. She had seemed particularly fond of yelling at Charrulls. She had shown disdain for me, but didn’t flinch when I approached her. When I was watching them in the big smelly room filled with small hides, the males were fiddling with those little sticks, probably scrying, while she watched me like a huntress. 

She had to be their clan chieftain. I was determined to confront her about why my concubine didn’t know how to do his job properly. 

I wanted to know why they’d given me this giant place and shown me all its compartments for my approval. They couldn’t really be that afraid of me, or of a tribe attacking them. Their numbers were few, but they clearly had riches and magic beyond imagining. There had to be more people. Breeding women and children, at the least. I wanted to know the source of their great magic that put rivers in tiny streams into their basins, and allowed them to build such giant wonders. 

It was all confusion and chicanery, but I couldn’t conceive to what end. 

Particularly I wanted to know why they’d given me a virgin concubine. At once he was keen and then demure. One minute he’d smile and let me touch him all over, the next he was fleeing from me. He’d looked on in delight when they were presenting me with my new domain, but bristled at my choosing a compartment. Things had been promising when he was attending to me in the cleansing water-room, but ran away at the touch of my cock. 

“Eet,” he said. He swallowed a spoonful of mush from his bowl to illustrate. 

For the morning meal, he’d made some kind of hearty pottage made from wild plants horses grazed on, but sweetened. It was another conundrum of the place. They had the power to harness fire to keep the indoors bright and warm, but no meat to eat. 

“I will kill for you a deer to prove my skills to you,” I said, consenting to eat his pottage anyway, in case there wasn’t any game in this unknown land. “Then you will fall upon my other spear in gratefulness and I will have captured both quarries.” 

The dumb look that marred his pretty face when I spoke fell again. I was about to resort to his trick of pretending his thoughts with his hands, when I heard the loud entrance of two people. Soon that strident, yellow-haired matriarch appeared with her ineffectual companion again. They stopped short, staring at me near the entrance to the food-room. 

“Ho-lee sschit!” The matriarch exclaimed. 

No doubt they were shocked and appalled at my lack of hair and beard. I couldn’t believe I’d let Charrulls do that. But I was bewitched by his tiny knives that could scrape the hair from my head without cutting me. Also, I thought my compliance would make him sweet for me, if hairless was how he wanted me. 

Charrulls seemed excited about his accomplishment and babbled quickly to his kin, no doubt boasting about how docile he’d made me by getting me to indulge in their strange, foreign custom. I felt unmanly without my beard. None of the men in this clan seemed to need one though, implying there was some benefit to it in their land. And I was loath to admit it, but I felt cleaner and much less itchy without it.

“Bring me your shaman or whatever sorcerer that divines the languages of other tribes. I need to parley with you,” I said to the matriarch. But she couldn’t even understand that much. They all examined me for a moment, and then returned to their babble without other acknowledgment. 

“This is tedious,” I said to myself, taking another spoonful of Charrulls’ sweetened mush. 

 

Charrulls’ clan collaborated for some time. Long enough that I was beginning to notice none of them went out to hunt or collect or harvest. I reasoned their magic must have somehow taken away their need for it. They were such confusing, strange people. It soon became evident there was some kind of uproar. Though I didn’t know the words, the tone of his people’s speech was angry and loud. It was also evident that anger was directed at me for some reason. 

Apparently it had something to do with the wraps they all wore. 

The tall, quiet one brought me the clothes I’d rejected from the night before. I didn’t understand why they wore them constantly. It wasn’t cold; in fact this domain had been warm since my first waking. The walls protected them from everything. Their coverings weren’t necessary. The only reason I could think of for the clothes was to keep them from rutting. It was what kept me from rutting with Charles the night before. 

Perhaps wraps were religious to them. 

But they all kept babbling and the tall one waved the wraps in my face. I took them and threw them at the little river basin in the food-room. I didn’t like those wraps. They covered me all over and made me feel swaddled. I would’ve taken my loincloth back to protect my manhood, but Charrulls destroyed that. A strange decision from someone who appeared to want nothing to do with my penis. 

Charrulls attempted his body-words again, showing me his wraps and the woman’s wraps and the tall one’s wraps. He put his hands on his shoulders and shuddered as though he were cold. Then he shook his head for a wrong. Then he showed me his thumb. 

I grabbed his thumb and looked at it, but it revealed nothing to me. Nor did looking at the roof where his thumb pointed. 

But I took the opportunity to lay his hand across my chest like he had when I first woke in his land. I undid one of the little wheels that kept his wrap tied and slipped my hand inside over his chest to show him how skin-to-skin was better. And I felt his heart-sound wrap against his chest, increasing in speed. I felt his eyes widen upon mine, like those of a wild animal finding its meal.

I undid more wheels from their spots until the woman, affirming her position as chieftain, yelled Charrulls’ name and shoved her way between us. I was about to strike her for trying to assert her authority over my Charrulls, but she ducked away just as quickly and procured a brightly colored cloth from a little compartment under the river basin. It had long strings and she tied it around my waist. The cloth hung from the strings far enough to shield my manhood from view. 

Was that all the hassle had been about? That this tribe did not allow each other to brandish their nudity in front of one another? I was getting mad about the lack of words and the lack of explanations. I pulled Charrulls to me. Knowing it was futile, I yelled anyway. 

“Get out now, you meddling termagant! You annoy me and interfere with my plans! If you try to take Charrulls away from me again you will make an enemy of me and none of your magic will stop me from crushing your empty houses!” 

The chief looked like she wanted to strike me, but Charrulls stepped in front of me assertively. They chattered away determinedly until some of the offense seeped from the chief’s face. Somehow he convinced them to leave. I looked at him in awe as they left. I really had no idea at all what kind of role he had in the clan anymore. He was given away to me, but he commanded the chief. He must have been respected indeed. 

Then more than ever I wished the language wall between us had been broken open. I wanted to know if his words were as soothing as the sound of his voice. I wanted to know if words could sway his desire. I wanted to know what kind of special magic he had that kept me entranced even as he pulled away from me and made others defer to him. 

It made me want him more.

I decided then that even if took me hundreds of sunsets I would devote my days to finding the method that would woo Charrulls over. After all, a hunt was more successful when the hunter used bait rather than simply running after his prey, spear out, charging for the kill. 

 

Throughout the rest of the day, I tried my best to do his tasks, if that was what I must before I had him. 

Early in the day he’d given me one of his magic sticks that left marks behind its trail. It wasn’t like clay or coal, or even like paint. It was a thin stick with an endless supply of its marks. He wanted me to draw shapes. He’d given me thin, cloth-like things to draw one, but the shapes were small and unimpressive. When he went to the water-room I stayed behind because I knew he wouldn’t let me come in anyway. I drew the shape of blessed fertility on the wall while he was gone to remind him of my thoughtfulness and good will toward his clan. 

I hadn’t thought it possible, but later on Charrulls showed me more compartments of his clan’s home. I inspected the things he gave to me and expressed my approval of his gifts. He showed me a box that emitted loud noises, like hundreds of people singing at once. And he had a tube, like the kind that he cleaned my teeth with, but this one buzzed like a bee rubbed the skin in a very pleasant way. I believed my cooperation was beginning to work because he showed me how the magic turned on the fire in the roof. It was a wondrous thing, to simply touch my fingers to a secret spot and have the whole room fill up with light from the fire. 

His smile rivaled the fire and when I kissed him in thanks he did not flee or wilt. 

He would not show me how the magic worked on the buzzing tooth cleaner however. 

Some time after the height of the sun, Charrulls shut himself away again and reemerged with smaller clothes on. They were similar to his other wraps, but shorter, exposing his arms and his legs. Then he took me outside to show me a big grass plain. The grass was bright green, dotted with a few trees until a far away treeline. It was sunny, warm, and pleasant. This was his clan land, as far as I could tell. 

Charrulls led me around the perimeter of the dwelling, which was much, much larger than I expected. The land stretched wide too. It even included other smaller dwellings in the distance. Charrulls went off in a slow trot to each of the smaller huts, to show me what was inside them. One was full of plants and the other full of sharp things and weapons and planting tools. 

As their run around the land progressed, we began to play as I had when I was younger. Racing against the other, purposefully causing obstacles. Without thinking about it, I reached out for Charrulls, he evaded my capture, and we were in a chase. He dodged and turned faster than I expected him to, but I was used to the hunt. I cut straight in front of him when he turned and tackled him down. Not wanting to hurt him, I rolled him underneath me in the fall. 

I took a little air out of him, but he was otherwise unhurt and started laughing as soon as we stopped rolling. His belly and chest were under mine, heaving with laughter and struggling from my weight. His knees went up on side of me. His hands rested on my shoulders, but not to push me away. Instead, he pulled me by the neck down to him and kissed me. 

I moaned into his mouth, melting into his firm little body, wanting to burrow inside of him, rut against him, smell his skin, just feel him. Anything. He had only just started to press his tongue passed my teeth when he suddenly stopped. 

He pulled away from my mouth and shook his head. He pushed against my shoulders, waving me up. 

For a moment I thought about refusing, pinioning him down, and just rubbing myself against him if it would give me some relief, so desperate I was to have him. But having his eyes look at me with hate or pain was something I didn’t want to tolerate. 

I stood up from on top of him, pulled him up, and didn’t even spank him for teasing me. 

As Charrulls led me by the hand back to his clan house, I caught a familiar scent that spurred me into revelation. With that acrid scent I knew why Charrulls had not mated with me and would not until I rectified it. I had not proven myself sufficiently impressive. He had no way of knowing my accomplishments. 

If I was at home and I needed to woo a potential mate as beautiful and special as Charrulls I would have risked death to kill his enemy or his father’s enemy. Since I could not find that information without speech, I would have to settle for an equally impressive and dangerous act. One that showed my bravery and talent and willingness to provide and protect. Something he could clearly understand without words. 

I was going to go into his woods and kill a bear.


	4. Charles

_Charles POV_

 

Shocked and startled by my behavior with Erik outside, I decided to take him inside and try to separate a little. It only reminded me of how frightening the situation was. Erik was a huge discovery, by all rights an impossible contribution to the study of human life. It was my job to care of him. I volunteered! I was supposed to collect data, but interfere as little as possible. Not roll around on the ground with him like a Discovery channel special. 

I didn’t know what had come over me. Except, well, that was a lie. It was Erik’s suspiciously gentlemanly behavior after Raven and Hank left and his general, all-the-time ridiculously chiseled abs and terrible, awful, unfairly perfect face. 

I didn’t care if Erik was essentially a living illustration out of a textbook called “How to Draw Stupidly Handsome Men.” 

Which is exactly what I told Raven as I hid in the corner of my study, while Erik tried to negotiate the mechanics of a Slinky on the sofa. 

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” she sighed into the phone.

“I am firm. I am resolute.” I said. “I am a scientist, not a… kissing… partner-person. I am going to be completely professional and impartial. I can’t—I won’t make out with him again.” 

“This shouldn’t be a thing you have to say. You shouldn’t have to say this. This should just be a thing.” 

“He’s very sweet.”

“He growled at me. And he points and yells every time he sees me.” 

“He’s very sweet to me.”

“Charles.” 

“You just have to understand the way he shows affection.”

“With his dick?”

“That was my fault I think.”

“He’s a cave—wait, what? What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“What didn’t you tell me?”

“Nothing… He just woke up this morning at little too… affectionate.”

“With his dick?!”

“I think that was my fault.”

“Did he assault you with his dick? I mean other than just letting it hang for the entire world to see. I mean, Charles, aren’t you, like, taking notes on his behavior. What happened? Why did you tell me? Did you tell—Hank!” She yelled. “Hank, did Charles tell you the caveman molested him?” 

I heard a distant, “Oh my God, what?”

“Erik did not molest me,” I said. “He just had a morning erection, which is normal. He’s obviously young and healthy.” 

“And the first thing he did was wake you up and show it to you?”

“Well, not… not really. I may have let him… sleep in my bed.” 

There was a long pause over the line, during which I could hear trying to quietly ask questions in the background, while Raven ignored him. 

“Why?” She finally said. 

“Well he didn’t understand the concept of having his own room, which is to be expected considering what little we know of the time he lived in. And he’s seems to have accepted me as part of his primary care—“

“Cave-wife.”

“Raven, stop that.”

“You can’t honestly think he isn’t trying to claim you or fuck you or whatever?”

Apparently Hank had gotten much closer to the phone, because his exclamation of “What the hell!” was loud and clear. And a big deal, because Hank never swore and did in fact consider “hell” a swear word. 

“No, I know. It’s complicated. I’m the only person he has in the world.”

“Why would you let him sleep in your bed? Unless, of course, you want to bone your monkey man.” 

“Well, that’s just derogatory. His feelings are just as complex as ours, he simply can’t express those feelings without—“

“His dick?”

There was a slapping sound over the receiver and Hank muttering “No, no, no, no, no!”

“Charles?” He said. 

“Yes.”

“What is going on? I’ve heard the word ‘dick’ far too many times in this conversation. Are you compromising the observation process? Are you compromising the only person in existence who can accurately tell us about prehistoric life?” He paused dramatically and sounded physically hurt. “Charles, are you compromising data?” 

I sighed and saw the giant penis Erik had drawn on my wall earlier. I looked at crouched over the coffee table, wearing Raven’s yellow duckie apron as a loincloth, determinedly straightening out the Slinky by pulling and bending it. 

“We’re not dealing with an experiment, Hank. There is no control or laboratory for this. We can’t lock him in a room and watch his reactions. He’s not a thing; he’s a fully functioning person who is reacting to the stimuli around him, which is necessarily and staggeringly foreign. Simply by being alive in this time, Erik can’t help but be compromised. He cannot—“

I stared into space with revelation. 

That was true. It would be impossible for me to be a completely impartial observer. He was a human and was hard-wired to make connections to other humans. Even if I tried to camouflage myself and only interact with him when ethically obligated to maintain his life, he would develop thoughts and feelings about me and likely try to act on them. 

It was my job to weigh which obligation was more important, to empirical purity or treating a subject under my care as a human being with all the needs and necessities and desires implied. 

“Charles?” Hank said. 

“Yes, no, never mind. Just, don’t worry. Everything will be fine. I’ll just keep recording his responses and accumulating data.” 

“Um, okay. Do you need us to come over?”

“No, that’s alright. I’m good.”

“Okay,” Hank said, sounding scared and hesitant. There was a long pause with hushed chattering that was obviously Raven and Hank frantically discussing something. Then Hank tentatively added, “Raven wants me to say that you should—I’m not saying that to your brother. Charles, just… If you have sexual intercourse with our subject—“

“Alright, thank you, Hank. I’ll be sure to call if anything happens.”

“I’m just saying that would definitely skew the—“

“Good night!” I half-yelled and quickly ended the call. 

I thought for a moment in silence about what kind of professional ethics I’d already disregarded in kissing him. Twice. And I thought about Erik and how he was only responding to his desires the way he’d been socialized. And really, his pursuit of me and expression of his sexuality was the purest set of data since Erik had gained consciousness. 

And then Erik very proudly dropped a twangy armful of more or less straightened Slinky on my desk. 

 

I waited as long as I could, for a long while debating if I even should, but it was night already. I was so proud of Erik. He’d shown such a remarkable ability to adapt. And it was true, he’d connected with me and I was the only one he had in the world. So at 10:30, I decided. 

I would give Erik another bath. 

It would probably be necessary until he adjusted to his surroundings and learned how to do some things for himself. And I certainly didn’t think he could handle a shower yet. 

It wasn’t so bad this time. He scrubbed himself this time, whenever I mimed something. The only thing I needed to do was scrub a little shampoo in his hair, which made his eyes roll back in his head. But at no point did he try to get me to give him a handy. It was a strange bar of success, but success nonetheless. However, this time, when he stood out of the bath, which I did not stare at for entirely too long, he grabbed me by the forearm and pointed in the water. 

“No,” I said shaking my head. 

He nodded and took the washcloth in his hand swiped it across my cheek. 

“No,” I said, even though I hadn’t had time for a shower since he came. 

He made his disappointed face again, and ran his hands down my upper arms like he was calming me down from hysteria. He said something aloud, but pointed in the water again. 

It was a very dangerous idea. But it was Erik’s idea. It wasn’t anything I was pushing on him. Perhaps he only thought it was natural. Knowing I’d regret it later, but also knowing it wasn’t the first stupid decision I’d made because an attractive man asked me to, I started to strip. 

His appreciative looks as I got into the tub did not go unnoticed. 

But when I tried to take the washcloth from him he wouldn’t let me and insisted soaping me up himself. I didn’t stop him. 

He took to the concept of soap really well. And very thoroughly. Except he didn’t seem to be able to manage it from outside the tub, so he climbed back in and squatted in front of me, giving me another free show. He may have been much more restrained that day, but that didn’t stop him from being overgenerous when he was washing me. I tried to stop him when he pushed the washcloth up my thigh, but he pretended not to notice my objections. His fingertips grazed the skin around my hole. 

He muttered something in a low, gravelly voice, hand palming my left cheek. Obviously I couldn’t know what he said, but I’d heard that pre-coital tone of voice many times before so I could read the subtext. 

I wasn’t quite ready to let that go forward, so I moved away and submerged myself under the water, hoping, if nothing else, to shock myself into calming down a little. 

 

After the bath, no further moves were pulled. By either of us. Erik did get a frightfully determined look on his face, but apparently that was not in regard to getting in my pants. And I did try to reintroduce the whole separate rooms idea, but Erik found any attempt to leave him somewhere offensive. So we wound up in my bed again. 

It was pleasant. I let him clutch me and pretended I didn’t find him stroking my hair endearing. I was so tired from the last two days though that I fell into a dead sleep on his chest in a matter of minutes. 

I awoke into utter insanity. 

 

I was shaken into consciousness as the sun came up. Erik grabbed under the arms and shook me into the mattress, as he bounced on his heels next to me. 

“Char-rolls! Char-rolls!” 

Before I could open my eyes I could smell something awful. I looked up to see Erik grinning maniacally over me, not five inches from my face. When I sat up to collect myself I noticed several suspicious things. Firstly, the sun peeking through the shades was barely up. Secondly, he was dressed. Well, as dressed as Erik liked to be, which meant he was wearing Raven’s rubber ducky apron like a Japanese fundoshi. Thirdly, He appeared to have a kitchen knife, wrapped tightly in Hank’s Mathletics championship T-shirt if I wasn’t mistaken, tucked snugly into the apron strings on his hip as a ready weapon. And lastly, he’d appeared to cover his exposed skin in mud and he had blood up to his elbows. 

“Jesus Christ!” 

Erik didn’t waste any time. Before I could even inspect to see if he was hurt, he grabbed me by the hand and tore off with me in tow downstairs. And there, in the main foyer, strapped to the door from the garden shed, was a gutted bear carcass. 

It felt like a long time before I realized I wasn’t having a gruesome dream, but there was in fact an actual dead bear in my house, my parents’ mansion, probably dripping blood and entrails on a several thousand dollar rug, killed by an actual reanimated Paleolithic hunter. 

I wanted, no, I yearned. I yearned with an absolutely soul-deep longing to know how or why this happened, but found when I opened my mouth no sounds came out. 

I felt like deserved some kind of lifetime achievement award for most surrealism accomplished in a forty-eight hour period. 

Erik grinned at me proudly and motioned in a grand, sweeping gesture to the giant bear corpse in my foyer. He grabbed my hand and walked me over closer to it. He sunk my fingers into its fur. I tried to recoil, but he smoothed his hand over mine and made me stroke it. I really wanted to pointlessly say that I was a vegetarian and consequently, didn’t exactly want to pet the recently killed, still warm and soft, corpse of any animal, but I was still speechless. He continued to talk animatedly as he lifted the seam he’d made in its stomach to show layers of fur, meat and skin. 

Then he slapped its lifeless flank and spread his hands out, palms open, as though he were giving me something. He grabbed the scruff of the bear’s neck vigorously and held his hands out to me. 

“Char-rolls!” 

It was a gift. 

I pointed to myself. “Me? Mine?” 

He nodded, enormously proud of himself. 

After a long contemplative silence, all I could think to say was, “I sincerely hope there aren’t any zoos near here.” 

 

By the time Raven and Hank arrived—because I most certainly called them, reasonably assuming removing a bear carcass from one’s house was something one needed accomplices for—my absolute bewilderment had dissipated a little.

I was still worried about, well, getting arrested. I was certain there were agencies that kept track of those sorts of animals, even in the wild. Although I didn’t know if “the wild” extended to a modest thicket of woods between multi-million dollar estates in Westchester County. Frankly I was more concerned about lice and ticks and diseases one could catch from coming in contact with a corpse. 

I had wanted to shoo Erik away from it, but obviously he hadn’t killed it just for sport. He’d immediately set about separating its hide from its fat, which was fascinatingly macabre to watch in between jotting down notes about this morning’s commotion. 

For his part, I hadn’t yet seen Erik in a better mood. He seemed exuberantly happy in his task of harvesting his kill. (I’d improved his mood slightly. Unsure of what to do really, I brought him a bowl of water to clean his knife and towels to lay things on, which was apparently the right thing to do. He grabbed me by the ankle and kissed my knee.) He absentmindedly chatted to himself during his work, something I’d rarely heard him do. He’d occasionally catch my attention and wave his knife and shout something with a joyous laugh. I assumed he was excited about the quality of the knife. I couldn’t guess how long it would have taken to do this job with a sharp stone. 

Upon arrival, Raven stood in the doorway surveying the scene. 

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.” 

Erik looked up at her from the floor with a wide grin, shouted something, and then laughed for a quite a long time, clearly amused with himself. I suspected it was some kind of joke at her expense and longed for the day I could know what his sense of humor was like. 

Hank looked between the bear, Erik, and me and said, “Please tell me you’re taking notes.” 

I nodded, waving my pen at him. 

“How?” 

Hank kneeled over the bear to look at it, or what Erik was doing. I didn’t know why. Hank was oblivious to it, but Erik was looking at him suspiciously, like he was going to try and take away the bear suddenly.

“That,” I shouted, “was ingenious!”

I showed them the makeshift spear Erik had made. I was rather impressed, because it was such a formidable looking thing. 

“Last night I showed him the grounds, which is probably what inspired this whole mess. But he’s got the wooden handle of this hoe for his spear and he fixed these garden shears on the end of it with these leather strings he got out of a baseball glove! Isn’t that marvelous?”

Raven raised two eyebrows. “He killed a bear with shit he found in the shed?” 

I nodded. “Then he used the door from the shed to transport the bear back here. Like a sort of sledge. Very clever of him,” I said, beaming at Erik when he looked up for a moment. He smiled back and threw a sticky shiny piece of bear-something into the bowl of water. It was gross, but also sweet. 

Hank snapped his fingers and pointed back the spear. “These wounds show significant notching.” 

Raven and I looked at each other blankly. Hank was gently pulling at one of the entrance wounds, which caused Erik to push his hand away. 

“He tied that so both blades of the shears would stay open, obviously for maximum blood loss. But the wounds indicate that in addition to stabbing, he twisted the weapon once it was in. That would not only take a lot of effort, but also probably a good deal of experience. I think it’s safe to say he was a hunter.”

“Great,” Raven said, looking torn between impressed and disturbed. “He can kill things really well. That makes me feel safe.” 

“Well, if you were a Stone Age woman in his tribe it probably would make you feel safe. I can’t say for certain, of course, but it’s likely he would’ve made a tribute like this, you know being such a dangerous and difficult endeavor, to get some kind of reward, possibly a mate.” 

Raven glared at me. And after he realized what he said, Hank blushed and looked anywhere but me. 

I bit my lip. “Say, do you know what’s fascinating about Paleolithic burial finds?” 

“Did you fuck him?”

“Raven, don’t be lewd,” I said, hoping to get her angry so I wouldn’t have to say anything. 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, for a guy who gets as much play as you, you’re such a Victorian lady. Did you quiveringly touch his throbbing pikestaff and Gentleman’s biscuits? Did you make tender sweetness in the moonlight? Did you let him into your chamber of secrets?” 

“Harry Potter,” Hank said brightly, perennially trying to understand our pop culture references, then remembered he said it out loud. 

“We did not have sex, no. But it is a gift.”

“What?”

“The bear. He told me it was a gift for me. So I guess you’re right, Hank. He’s trying to win me. Fabulous.”

“He told you?” Hank said. 

“He implied. He… hand gestured me that it was a gift.”

“Are you sure?”

“Reasonably sure, why?” 

“How sure?”

“Ninety-seven fucking percent, Hank,” I growled. “What do you want from me?”

“Well,” he said hesitantly. “If this is some kind of wooing process, that’s significant. That kind of data has to be recorded. Amorous overtures definitely makes sense with the way he treats you as opposed to us. This is a spectacular opportunity for observation.” 

Raven gave Hank the stink eye. “You too?” 

Hank ignored her. “Can I look at your notes so far?”

Raven let out a beleaguered sigh as Hank flipped through my pages. “What are we going to do about this then?” 

“No clue really. We will have to dispose of it somehow. I don’t suppose there’s a sort of animal corpse removal service we can hire.” 

“I think your caveman might object.”

“Do you want to eat bear for the next year?” 

She paused. “Google waste management and carcasses?” 

Hank pulled his nose out of my notebook for a second to say, “Bad idea. Any kind of legal waste management service would notify the authorities if you give them a huge animal carcass. And the Department of Natural Resources will fine you for killing an animal out of season. Not that you couldn’t afford it, but it would be best to keep people away from here until Erik is a little… socialized. I think you should just let him finish. We can freeze the meat for now. Then the bones will just be leftover. I assume we can easily discard those illegally.” 

Quashing an uncomfortable feeling, I said, “What about the head and… organs?”

“Well I’m assuming he left the viscera in the woods. So we need to bury that before it attracts animals. And he’ll probably want the brains to tan the hide like Native Americans did.”

Below the horror of actually handing a dead body, I also objected to how much bloody work it was. I wanted to take back every kind word I’d had about time travel. The past sounded awful. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Raven said cautiously, “but how do you know so much about this?” 

“I’m a male from the Midwest. You have no idea how many times I was forced to go deer hunting,” he said glumly. “I constantly thought about Bambi whenever they took me. It was horrible.” 

Erik whooped in triumph, drawing our attention. From the chest cavity, he pulled out a huge purple-red wad of flesh and slapped it on one of the towels. He made a growly, masticating sound and then pointed at me with his bloody knife.

“Char-rolls. Eet. Char-rolls.” 

“That’s totally the heart,” Hank said.

Again, it was gross, but really, when I thought about it, kind of sweet too. 

 

The rest of the day was preoccupied with taking care of the bear. A not-so-surprisingly work intensive endeavor, particularly since the one of us who really knew what he was doing was used to doing it with stone tools and couldn’t speak English. It fairly quickly got to a level of gruesomeness I couldn’t handle, the more and more Erik cut into the interior of the bear. At some point Hank started helping Erik and showed him a wider array of knives, to their mutual delight. But it wasn’t until Erik took the butcher knife with clear designs for the bear’s head that I made them take their operation to the shed. 

Scientist or no, there are reasons I became a vegetarian and they had mostly to do with leaving animals’ faces on their faces. 

The most interesting aspect of the day, which I kept stealing away to right about, was Hank and Erik’s bonding experience while they dismembered the bear together. Raven and I were unwilling to participate in part because we had no idea what to do and in part because it was disgusting. That unfortunately left Raven and I responsible with finding temporary storage for the bear parts. We made an emergency trip to a department store for a large freezer and several dozen feet of thermal freezer paper and plastic wrap, which I’m sure landed my credit card on some NSA watch list. Hank at least had some experience and after he called one of his more Grizzly Adams-esque uncles, had a better idea of how to turn my shed into a something like a scene from Silence of the Lambs. 

When we returned from the store, Hank and Erik were eating skewers of bear meat cooked on an old charcoal grill, and, apparently, enjoying each other’s company. 

I spent nearly an hour writing about homosocial bonding experiences relating to violence and hunting rituals. 

It was a surprisingly good day. 

When it had been determined that we had done all we could in one day and that everyone was tired, Erik sort of mauled me before we even got as far as the upstairs restroom. He grabbed me by the waist, pushed me against the wall, and started lazily mouthing along my neck and jaw line, occasionally nipping. A bone-deep shudder went through me. I was so glad Hank and Raven had already discretely disappeared to Raven’s room, because I couldn’t find the willpower within myself to push him away this time. 

That was the only reason Erik had ever made me nervous. When it came to sex my restraint rapidly approached nil. And Erik was so determined. 

I groaned as his arms wrapped tighter around my middle, lifting me up against the wall. I just couldn’t take it anymore. At some point you just need to put your tongue in someone’s mouth. I grabbed the back of his head and did just that. He marked his approval by squeezing me tight until, between that and the kiss, I could hardly breathe. 

I pushed him away as much as I pulled myself from him to catch my breath. It was like we were held together with magnets. It felt like there wasn’t enough time. Because things were progressing quickly, which I wouldn’t have minded except…

I pulled his hands up. Hank had been helpful in making sure he washed regularly, but he’d still had his hands inside a dead bear all day. 

I hauled him into the washroom, trying to kill two birds with one stone. Pulling him into the shower with me wasn’t a great feat; Erik followed me with no less than an inch between us. Everything was going perfectly. Erik was gorgeous with water dripping off him. His penis was gorgeous, smooth and dark red and rising up and to the left. I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my hand around the shaft and pumping him to fullness. 

His hips drove me into the tile wall. 

“Shit. Condoms. Lube. Fuck.” 

Erik nibbled down the line of my throat unconcerned with my dilemma. I thought for a moment the best way to mime this, and then realized what that primal beast of a man was made for. I shut off the water, slipped out of his arms, and ran down the hallway, ready to be hunted. 

I got to my room before him, but not too much before, and rummaged my lube out of the bedside cabinet, already tearing the condom wrapper with my teeth. There was something about Erik that told me he wasn’t going to spend much time on foreplay. 

Erik slid into the room, massive erection first, looking slightly terrifying. He barked something angrily. In an attempt to further our efforts in non-verbal communication, I pushed myself back a little, poured lube on my palm and starting jacking myself off. The angry look in his eyes slid into something else. He came forward, cock in hand. I squeezed myself tighter and moaned his name. 

In a second I found myself face down, not entirely ready to be plowed into. So I struggled away from him and got onto my back again, because there was definitely one thing that was going to be explained, language gap or no. 

In his frantic scrabbling, I grabbed his hand shoved the bottle of lube in his face so he’d see. I tipped it open, poured it in his palm and shoved his hand into the narrow, wet space between our bodies. My hand slid over his, both of our fingers together fisting his cock. With less patience than I’d normally take, I urged his fingers inside me, manipulated his hand to start fucking me. He got the idea pretty quickly. 

While he did that, I wrapped him up and slathered him down with more lube. (The condom startled him for a second, but apparently he couldn’t be arsed to slow down to inspect it.)

We were a pretty good team when it came to screwing. 

His fingers were dexterous and he pushed against my pushes, amazingly adept at that body language, and I could’ve gone on like that for ages, but Erik had other plans. 

He grabbed me by the hips and flipped me on my stomach again. I spread my knees out wide, while he struggled to get the head inside. It was tight fit, but once he did he pushed in all the way. For a moment, everything went black. It hurt like it hadn’t in a long time; it even burned, but in that satisfying way that only exertion provides. And it felt like something trying to tear me in half, but it also felt like every tiny synapse of pleasure lighting my brain up like a fireworks show. 

Somehow I had wanted to feel something different, something more complex, but the best things are always just simple. 

Erik’s hand slid down my back to clamp tightly around my shoulder, his other squeezing my hip. Then he drove into me with a furious pace, his flesh wetly slapping against mine. I squeezed and wriggled against him, but his position and hold on me afforded him the perfect angle to assault my prostate. It was like a blitz, pummeling me with exquisite sensation. My whole body was buzzing with flame. I knew any hopes of control over my orgasm was a fruitless fucking hope because I was overloading on endorphins. I wasn’t going to last long. And if the constant, jackrabbitting wallop of the headboard against the wall was any indication, neither would Erik. 

I thrust a hand between my legs to finish myself off. Erik’s hot breath on my back had him whispering… his name? 

I lethally aimed thrust sent me over the edge and I lost myself to orgasm for what may have been days as far as I was concerned. 

Erik wasn’t far behind. He pushed more weight on me. With the strength leaving his right arm, he pushed down on my other shoulder with his left and in his final strokes he gasped, “Ariik.” 

For several moment while Erik collapsed on top of me, I wondered hard about why he had said his own name during climax. Then I remembered our agonizing series of gestures and his dubious expressions of saying his own name and of bloody course something he said in his own language wasn’t just as simple as his own name. 

He put a possessive, guiding hand over my throat and gently kissed the side of my face. 

“Ariik.” 

And somehow, I felt like I should have known it had to have meant “mine.” 

 


	5. Erik (Coda)

_Erik’s POV_

 

_Three Years Later_

 

 

“Former chief,” I said, finding Raven in the kitchen. “I am in need of your council.” 

“What’s this?” She said, waving a green stalk at me. 

Despite my status as chief, my clan took it upon themselves examine my word abilities constantly. I supposed I would take more offense to the undermining of my authority if my clan were larger. As it was, I hardly needed to keep order with only three people to care for. 

“Celery.”

“And?” 

I sighed. I did certainly regret sometimes that I did not exile her after I usurped her position as clan leader. But she and Charles were siblings and it would have made Charles sad. 

“Nut sauce.” 

“Peanut butter. Made of crushed peanuts and salt.” 

Butter. Sauce. Salsa. Paste. Jam. Food things, liquid and not. It was confusing to have so many words for all the same thing. 

“Butter, yes, and peas and nuts. I need your words of advice.” 

“Shoot.”

“Why do you say that? I do not have my bow.”

“I mean tell me your problem.” 

“Charles is enraged at me. I want your aids in making him pleasant at me again.” 

Raven smiled. “What did you do?” 

“I did nothing wrong. He does not see what I do is correct for the clan. He is the opposite of correct.” 

“If he’s wrong, why aren’t you camping out on the grounds? Isn’t that what you usually do when you’re mad at him?” 

Charles and I frequently were at odds over decisions about our clan’s future. On occasion my anger would be so great I would leave the trappings of the big house and live outside. The first time I did so, I’d expected Charles to follow me out within a matter of hours, begging for my company and forgiveness. I made it half way through the night before realizing he had no intention to go out and retrieve me. Thus impelling me return to him like a lost animal, pleading to be in from the cold. It took me several efforts to understand that Charles is far more stubborn than he appears. 

But the former chief did not need to know about the vain efforts to make Charles succumb to my will. Besides, that was before I knew Charles had been given to me as a wife, not a concubine. I had not done that for many moons.

“I am not enraged at the consort. I want him to see his error in thought.” 

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’m going to kill Hank for teaching you that word.” 

“You have no authority to make death, former chief. I am respond death if you kill Hank!”

“I was joking!” She yelled, with her hands in submission. “I’m being facetious. Flip. Saying something big for no reason to be funny.” 

I relaxed, but did not think it was funny. I had grown very fond of Hank and would not want to see him killed. Even if he was odd and a little stupid. I didn’t think it was funny to make humor out of one’s consort’s life. I would never make humor out of Charles’ life. That was probably why I was a better chief than Raven. Fortunately, she was still valuable for many things, including persuading Charles.

“Alright, jeez,” she said. “What do you need help with?” 

“You help me argue for more people for our clan.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Our clan is small and weak. We need more people. For defense.”

“Okay, we’ve tried explaining this to you a million times, but I’ll do it again. Yes, our clan is little, but we’re part of a much larger clan. You are not really the chief. The real chief is called the President and we give him money—or rich things of value—to defend us. And he does. If there’s ever something threatening our little clan, our family, all we have to do is call the police.” 

I sighed. “That is not how it works good!” 

I wanted to explain properly, but my words still weren’t enough to tell them why. They’d talked about him before, Police, but I’d never seen him. If we were attacked by raiders and called for Police on the magic, he wouldn’t be able to stop them before they came. If he did not live with us, I couldn’t see the point of him. Charles and Hank did show me President once, but it was just a person trapped in the magic mirror box. They told me that he wasn’t really trapped in the box, but it was just an image of his reflection trapped in the box. I was still unsure about that. But if that picture truly was President, I saw no reason why I couldn’t defeat him in battle. He looked small and fragile. 

“President is not here,” I said. “President was never here! No one who is not here can protect us! I am here. I need people to protect Charles when I sleep.” 

“We have an alarm—Oh Christ. We have magic that makes the bad people go away, you goon! The Stark Home Security Company takes care of Charles while you sleep.” 

I growled manfully in frustration. I hated hearing words I didn’t know and Raven said them all the time. “Who is Stark Cupnee? Where is he?”

Raven bowed her head into her hands. She did that when she was upset with me to indicate I was gone from her eyes, but I did not care. I only cared when Charles shielded me from his eyes. 

“Okay. It’s magic. There is no person. It’s a series of—Can’t you just trust that no one is going to attack us? That we’ve been safe as long as you’ve been here? I mean, is this really what you’re upset about? Because you’ve never been worried about this before.” 

I indeed had been, but we were fortunately isolated. Aside from my first kill of the bear for Charles’ proof of affection, there was hardly any game in the woods to hunt. Mostly small animals. Hank had to take me many miles away for any subsequent hunts. It kept raiders away, but also meant combining with other clans was difficult. They kept telling me this was how people lived in this realm, but it made me uneasy. 

Also, I had been learning much about these people and this realm on the mirror box. People were constantly being attacked on the mirror box. Things weren’t normal here. Despite what Hank and Charles kept saying about little clans being unto themselves, being families who didn’t ally or war with other clans, I knew our clan wasn’t reaching its potential. 

If raiders were to come and steal our wealth and magic, we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves. Raven evidently had fighting spirit, but, much to my dismay, Charles believed that harming other people and animals was a blight on his soul. It was obviously from where his beauty and kindness stemmed, but in relentless need of protection. Hank wasn’t a particularly good hunter, but was the one who first showed me the gift of the bow and accompanied me on hunting trips. If war broke upon us, I was unsure of how he would fare.

The additional problem was that there were no breeding women or children to sustain our clan’s life. Raven was either barren or ascended, otherwise she and Hank would already have young. And without servants or breeding women there was no way to give Charles children to raise and continue our clan. 

That was the very topic Charles and I had argued about. So I apprized Raven of our previous conversation to await her advice on wooing her brother to my sympathy. 

“You told him what?” She exclaimed, still wielding her nut paste and celery stalk. 

I sighed. What did these people fail to understand about basic survival?

“The clan needs defenders and servants and children or all our wealth will be taken!” 

“Okay, but let’s go back to the part where you wanted to kidnap a stranger to have Charles’ children.” 

“It is of a time we have children. I offer we take the daughter of a noble tribe,” on her sour look I added, “or young children, and breed her to form alliance. Then the add is two part. We gain defense in ally and we increase our clan for future.” 

The former chief sat silent for a piece, then sucked in breath and yelled at volume louder than I had ever heard from her, “CHARLES!” 

 

A long time was spent with Hank and Charles explaining that they couldn’t follow through with my plan. 

“Kidnapping and raping is BAD!” Raven said at one point, but I didn’t know what those words.

Charles explained what those words were and that clans don’t make allies at all, let alone like that, because everyone would be angry if I stole another clan’s noblewoman, EVEN IF I offered to give them servants or children in return. 

Then Charles said, “What would you do if someone stole me?” 

So I discarded the plan to bring in outsiders to strengthen our clan. But I saw few other options for our clan. Charles and I could find other women to win by contest, but I would not give up Charles as my wife. I did not care that it was not normal, but he was far more than a concubine and no one could usurp his status in my heart. I would fight to the death anyone who would attempt to take him from me, so I could not think to leave him willingly. 

Later that evening, Charles showed me another mirror box story in our sleeping room. It was a near daily occurrence. He showed me a story that had words I understood, and then would ask me questions about the reflection people. This story was about a man who lived amongst monkeys and fell in love with a woman he couldn’t speak with. 

I wasn’t amused with Charles’ choice of story. 

“Do not make humor of me.” 

We were sitting up in the bed and he moved in closer, pulling my head down to his shoulder. In our alone-time I found it acceptable for Charles to cosset me. In front of the others, it was important to have my authority. But Charles was terrifically adept at taking care of me. He liked to trim my beard and comb through my hair. It was tradition from my arrival for him to bathe me, even though I had since mastered the magic of the water room. And even though he was smaller and dependant on me, I enjoyed resting on him. 

He stroked his fingers through my hair. “Why are you thinking about getting more people for our clan so much?”

“Our clan will die without children.” 

I didn’t understand why I had to explain these things. I didn’t properly understand why Charles hadn’t already indicated a desire to have young. 

“Oh darling,” he said with sympathy, muttering into the top of my head. “That’s pretty sweet, really. One day Raven and Hank might have kids.” 

“What day?”

“I don’t know. You know you don’t have to worry about the fate of the clan. We’ll be fine. Even if we don’t have kids.” 

“The clan needs children or we die forever with no people to speak our names in favor to the gods. We need to teach them about our thoughts and ways.” 

Charles did not have words to respond to that, but kissed me firmly and adamantly. 

I think I may have finally persuaded him. 

 

_End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No beta. Very little editing. Thank you very much to the OP and everyone who commented on the kink meme. Thanks for reading!
> 
> There will be more bits and pieces as a part of this series, maybe, probably, but just little deleted scenes. Just nothing big. I hope.
> 
> FANARTS: Some beautiful person on tumblr made [this AMAZEBALLS fanart](http://palalife.tumblr.com/post/16911868886/my-barbaric-darling-by-baehj2915-erik-being-the), which accurately describes the tone of the story and sent me into paroxysms of delight. :D Thank you, kind stranger!
> 
> Update: Another kind stranger also made [a similarly AMAZEBALLS fanart.](http://paperflower86.tumblr.com/post/17516781373/early-valentines-day-fanart-inspired-by)
> 
> Another update: And oh Lordy, the beautiful people in this fandom never cease! [This kind stranger did an entire damn scene!](http://brilcrist.tumblr.com/post/17737404485/pardon-for-the-messy-inking-coz-i-just-need-some) Paroxysms of delight, indeed. 
> 
>  


End file.
